Falling Together
by IvoryDancer
Summary: Edward isn't so easily forgiven at the end of New Moon. Watch Bella struggle to forgive Edward and get past all the insecurities Edward placed in her heart.


**Author's note: Hey guys I know it's been done before and I'm sorry for my lack of creativity, but Edward got off WAY too easy at the end of New moon, so I decided that I was going to mae it go the way i wanted it too. Thanks for reading. I love you all.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight series, It's characters or the plot. if I did, Renesmee would not exist, bella's change would have been more like a sexy vampire cliche, and Jacob and Leah would be happily in love.**

Falling Together

The jets were too loud for my liking. With Edward suddenly next to me, all my senses were alert, in overdrive. Everything was painfully clear; The sounds of snoring and clinking glass, the beauty of the flight attendant as she asked everyone if the needed anything, the movie playing in front of us too-vibrant colors, and the feeling of the abrasive blanket Edward had laid across me. But the thing I was most acutely aware of was the silence. It was deafening, screaming with questions un-asked and un-answered, earfuls unheard, and longings kept suppressed.

I noticed Edward wincing out of the corner of my eye and I realized how much worse this must be for him, with his extremely heightened senses. And his _thirst. _It must have been torture to sit there in the cabin, surrounded by appetizing humans, unable to quench his thirst.

I turned my head toward him, pondering. Would any intended comfort from me be any true comfort at all? He had held me close, before, in the Volturi's lobby, as if it calmed him.

I supposed the worst he could do was reject me. That wouldn't be so awful, compared to what I had experienced. Compared to what I would be enduring within the next few hours.

I reached over to where his hands lay in his lap, and put my much smaller one over them. He had flipped his hand over and gripping mine tightly before I could blink. The movement was so fast, and the relief on his face made me wonder if he had been waiting for this. Waiting for me to offer my touch before he took it.

He lifted our entwined hands to rest between us on the armrest.

Until he met my gaze, I hadn't really noticed that he had been avoiding looking there until now. He had been looking at me, my chest, arms, hands, thighs, knees, hair, ears, but never at my face. Now he looked directly at me now, as he shifted his body away before he bent over to kiss the back of my hand. It almost looked as though he were bowing, except he remained there, chin on the armrest, lips on my hand, eyes wide and glazed as he looked up at me. He looked ludicrously like a puppy, begging me to take him home. _Ridiculous. _

I was offering the comfort of a friend, and he took it readily, clinging to me falsely after his near-death experience. He was traumatized, and relieved that I was alive, that he was free of any guilt. He was still tense.

I shifted in my seat to face my body towards him, my hand still in his. "Relax, Edward," my voice broke through the silence, and it felt quieter without it thrumming in my ears. "We're going to be okay."

Suddenly, I was in his arms, my nose in his shoulder. He was stroking my hair with frenzied, shaking hands, and his mouth was moving in fast, silent words against my temple. "Yes," Edward whispered. "Yes, we are going to be okay. We have to be okay." I had meant to calm him, but now he seemed maniacal, frantic. His words became garbled and incoherent again. No words made sense, just broken syllables, and the feel of his mouth shaping the words against my skin. He was close, so close, and I felt that I might just explode, so close to the man I loved so completely. _Don't let go_, something told me, sure that when he did, it would be for the last time.

But I needed him to calm down. He couldn't show up in front of his family looking deranged and frantic. I tried to find my voice, and failed. I tried again. "Edward, calm down. Everything will be okay. We're all safe. When we land, we can each go home." I'm not sure why it came out phrased like that, but I wanted him to know that I didn't expect to come back to _my_ home with me, that he could go with his family back to wherever they had been before I made this mess.

In reaction, he visibly flinched away from me, as if I had scalded him. He looked confused. He tilted his head at me. "What do you-, "he paused, his mouth open, eyes widening. His voice was quiet, devastated as he said, "Oh, Bella!" He was hugging me again. I thought I heard a faint "No," along with other little words that didn't clue me in to what he was saying. I heard my name several times.

"I missed you," he said. The declaration was sudden and caught me off guard. He pressed his nose to my hairline, inhaling before letting out a small "Oh."

Of all the things I had expected he might say, that sure wasn't one of them. And of all the things I wanted him to say, that one seemed the most redundant because of all the ways I could interpret it.

He could mean that he'd missed my scent, or the silence my mind offered. He could just miss a companionship, with someone who belonged to him. I wanted to believe that he might have missed me the way I missed him; so strongly that it crushed me, and no matter where I was, what I was doing, I thought of him and wished that he was there with me. I had missed him so much that I struggled not to think of him, because it hurt.

He spoke again. "'I missed you' is an enormous understatement but it's the only way I can explain how I've felt these past months."

My heart felt like it was crashing against my ribs, the way the ocean waves crash against the shore; crashing harshly, then quickly receding, then crashing against once more in a continuous pattern.

I had to look away. "Please don't say thing like that. I'm barely keeping it together here."

"Forgive me, please." The words were simple. A simple phrase used by people daily who usually weren't asking for much. He was. "Forgive me for this… mess." He was leaning back and looking at me again. Oh. _Oh. _That was all he was asking. He wanted me to forgive him for putting me in danger, for nearly killing himself out of sheer guilt and stupidity, over a simple misunderstanding. That wasn't so hard.

"I am so sorry, Bella. This is entirely my fault and I apologize," his hands moved to my shoulders. He leaned forward again, his forehead buried in the apex where my neck met my shoulder. "I am _so ecstatic_ that you are safe and here with me, but I wish that none of this had happened, and that you hadn't been put in danger again because of my actions. I am so incredibly sorry. So sorry…"

"It isn't your fault." The words escaped my mouth before I could think about them. I just wanted to relieve some of his guilt. I just… wanted to make him feel better, no matter what. It _was_ his fault, partially. But it was also mine. And it hurt to see his pain more than it hurt to bear my own. My tongue still felt leaden with accusations.

_I loved you, and you broke me._

_I love you, and you can't possibly care._

_You killed me, jumping from a cliff was nothing._

_This is your fault, and I will never be the same again, but I still don't know how to hate you._

He had pulled away to look at me, incredulous. Despite how I felt, I trudged on, hoping to heal him. "None of it is your fault. It was mine, and mine alone. Nothing even happened. Nobody died. Nobody was even hurt." _Physically._

"You jumped off a cliff, Bella. Of course that was my fault." He was talking in a monotone, and he sounded dead.

I felt indignation rear its ugly head. How _presumptuous_ could he be? "Don't think so highly of yourself. That was my choice. Even if I _had_ plunged to my death that day, it would have been my choice and not your fault. Definitely not worthy of you going to such extremes as you did today. I did it for recreational purposes, and that's the end of it."

He still looked doubtful. I glared back, still defiant. He chose another route. "Jumping from a cliff for fun is just as stupid as jumping to commit suicide. The choice could have been fatal either way."

"And it wouldn't have been your fault, or worthy of attempting to kill yourself as well. Besides, who are you to talk? You did all… _this_," I gestured around us, as though it explained what I meant," without assuring yourself that I was dead. Honestly, Edward, what were you thinking? Didn't you worry about how it would affect your family? Esme would have been crushed! And Carlisle! Don't even get me started on Alice!" It came in a torrent now, unstoppable. "It was selfish and reckless and irresponsible and just stupid, to be frank. I always thought that you were so much smarter than me, but _I_ never tried to kill myself because I have people who need me. And so do you. I wasn't going to hurt them like that, and you shouldn't have either. You family needs you, Edward. You should never entertain the idea of taking yourself away from them. Do you know what that would have done to them? Did you even think about them? And me? Did you think of me, for one moment?" I hadn't meant to ask that question. But, I wasn't about to take it back. I wanted to know, now.

"I _only_ thought of you." His tone was earnest, asking me to find more meaning in his words than what he was saying. His eyes didn't leave mine, studying them, memorizing them.

"Did you? Did you think, for one second, that I would be happy that you had _killed yourself out of guilt? _Even when you were coming to me, I could never be happy for that. Who does that, Edward? Who is that stupid?"

At first, he looked shocked over how many times I had called him stupid. Then that shocked moved to horror, his mouth open before he had anything to say. "Bella," My name on his tongue was soothing, irritatingly so. I was losing my anger. He ran his hand through his wild hair while I waited for him to speak again. His hair was the same. And his features. He was still the Edward I knew. He looked exhausted- something I didn't know was possible for vampires- and frightened and speechless and very un-Edward like, but he was still that boy from biology class that I had accidentally fallen in love with. "Bella," he repeated," you… You can't honestly th-think… that _I went to the Volturi out of guilt. _You think that is the only reason?" I didn't understand his expression. He looked… frustrated and almost mad.

"Well… yeah. What else am I supposed to think?"

Now he looked mad. "Did everything I said to you mean nothing to you? Do you know how many times I told I loved you that summer? Every day. Several times every night. It's not enough to express what I felt, but it was the only way I knew how to explain it. Did it mean nothing?" His voice was raised now.

"It meant _everything_," I spat at him.

He ignored me, but he didn't look as mad as sad anymore. "Don't you remember anything I told you?"

"I remember everything you told me." I was angry. I didn't want to be angry. I wanted to savor this time together. But right now I wanted to be far away from him. "I remember you telling me that your love was life-long and that you wouldn't leave me. And I remember telling me that you couldn't live without me. But what I remember most was when you made all of those things you said lies by telling me that I'm not good for you, that I don't belong in your world, and that you don't love me anymore. But actions speak louder than words don't they? And you left me for dead. You shouldn't have been surprised when I almost did." I heard Alice gasp from her seat behind us, quiet words emanating from her mouth, too fast and quiet to make out, but they sounded furious. Edward chose to ignore her words, whatever they were. And his expression morphed from merely sad to agonized.

"Oh Bella," he said. "No. No, no, no, _God no. _You can't honestly believe that. You couldn't have come all this way for me, believing that I don't love you."

I was confused again. "I can, and I do, and I did. What else am I supposed to think after what you did?"

He inhaled deeply, looking as though he were bracing himself, before putting his hands on my biceps. "That day, Bella, I lied. When I told you that I didn't want you anymore, I _lied_. I am so sorry. I am so incredibly sorry that I hurt, and that it was for nothing. Sorry that I lied to protect you, but put you in danger anyway. Sorry that staying away from you this long has only led me directly back to you, because I can't stay away. I love you, Bella. So much. There was nothing without you. There _is_ nothing without you. I'm sorry for being weak and needing you too much to let you walk away now, as I walked away before.

"Do you understand, Bella? I left _because_ I love you. God, how I love you."

I just sat there, unable to move, unable to speak, not knowing what I would do if I could. I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to think. What to feel. I just felt… numb. I couldn't think this close to him, after that declaration. I wanted to gather my appendages and protect myself, hold myself together as his words resonated deep within me and I began to understand. I started to pull away.

"Don't!" he grasped my hand and brought back to where it had been resting on his chest. "Please don't. Don't pull away from me now. Please. I love you so much. Let me fix this. Please. I love you too much to not try. I will spend a thousand years trying to fix us, if you'll let me. Please. I love you. That meant something to you once."

It still meant something to me. It meant everything. But, somehow, it didn't make me feel better. It made me feel worse. All those months of heartache and feeling unworthy, had been because of a lie. He had not only killed me, he had lied to do it. He had done it because he had made the decision to protect me without talking to me about it. He didn't care enough to discuss it with me. He hadn't thought I was mature enough to understand how he felt about it. I had been broken because he thought I couldn't understand, or he wasn't willing to try and make me understand.

I found myself shaking my head.

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